Stairway Conditioning

A long flight of stairs is hard to beat for conditioning versatility and makes a great training tool; flights of 75 steps and up are a great challenge. While a lengthy, steep hill can be substituted, it's not quite as good. The stair training protocols I'm about to describe produce conditioned strength, or strength-endurance, also a strength subset known as power-endurance.

It takes a great deal of energy to propel the body up a steep flight of stairs; the heart rate and breath are rapidly elevated. In this kind of effort, you must discipline the breathing to prevent harmful mouth breathing, ie, panic breathing.

The workouts proposed below build tremendous all-around endurance, power and strength; this is a hybrid strength critical in certain sports, especially the combat sports.

The shortcoming of stair climbing as an exercise is the lack of upper-body stimulus, which is easily remedied by combining classic upper-body exercises with the lower-body dominance of the stair-work, thus hitting every major muscle group, while taxing the same energy system used in combat sports.

Below are some of my favorite drills with which to exploit a good stairway.

Walking the steps 1, 2 or 3 at a time

Running the steps 1, 2, 3 at a time

Jumping up the stairs on both feet 1, 2 or 3 at a time

Hopping on one foot up the stairs

Jumping up the stairs from the low squat position (on toes) 1, 2 or 3 at a time, maintaining the low squat position throughout the drill

Bear crawling up the stairs

Backwards bear crawling up the stairs

Carrying heavy objects up the stairs e.g., sandbag, rock, dumbbells, a 5-gallon water bottle (with water insi!), a log, kettlebell(s), or a partner

All my life, wherever I happened to be, I've trained myself on flights of stairs. When I was staying in one location for a length of time, and so frequenting the same set of stairs, I'd leave "pet" rocks, logs, and other resistance implements hidden adjacent to the stairs

To balance the heavy leg work involved in stair climbing routines, it's important to include complementary upper-body pulling and pushing work. A simple pulling solution is the towel pull. Requiring only a towel -- and something from which to hang it! You can always use a suspension device eg, a Jungle Gym or TRX, but I love the simplicity of a towel. As a bonus, a towel provides sports-specific grip work akin to rope climbing. The fingers, hands wrists forearms, biceps and back all receive a tremendous workout.

You might argue with me that you're already doing the requisite pulling in your gym workouts, so you needn't add it into the stair session, but I tell you this: a combination upper/lower-body stair circuit provides incredible strength-endurance work for the martial artist--akin to live sparring--that can keep your conditioning up to par -- when off the mat.

Let me clarify: no training technique can match live sparring -- but what I offer you here is the best way I know to duplicate the specific cardio demands when live training can't be had.

An anecdote: I had a fighter who sustained a bad rib pull, such that any pressure on the rib -- or torsion -- was excruciating. Not to mention that with rib injuries, it's all too easy to re-injure yourself; the risk isn't worth it.

However, running the stairs didn't stress the ribs at all -- nor did slow pull-ups and push-ups -- but add a rotation and the guy was in agony. With this work, the client was able to maintain conditioning at a very high level, so that when he did come back, eight weeks later, he was able to not only properly prepare himself for a tournament -- but win that tournament -- a mere three weeks later! He said his gas was never better -- but this is only one of a hundred cases I could relate to you.

But back to the training... at my preferred stair site, I'd pinpoint a convenient tree limb, piece of playground equipment, cross beam, pipe, or utility pole to hang my towel. There was always something I could put to use.

For upper-body pushing, there are no end of excellent push-up variations. I like to vary my push-ups with each set -- starting with the most difficult variation going progressively easier as fatigue comes into play.

Here are five workouts (or five rounds) which typify how I'll utilize a stairway as a conditioning implement. For a complete workout, either perform a few repeats of each round, or stick with a single round the entire session.

ROUND I

At the bottom of the steps, do a set of 5 towel chin-ups

As fast as possible -- every other step -- run to the top of the stairs

At the top, drop down and perform a strict set of 10 Hindu push-ups

Take an easy walk back down, restoring the breath, to the base of the stairs

Repeat 3 times

ROUND II

At the bottom of the stairs, perform a set of towel chin-ups

From a low squat position (on the toes) hop up the stairs, 2 to 3 steps at a time Maintain the low squat the entire time, butt-to-heels All the while, do your best to land as lightly as possible, noiselessly

At the top of the stairs do fist push-ups: place the weight on the first two knuckles ie, the same contact point if you punched someone

Flip yourself over and perform a set of alternating elbow-to-knee exercise (bicycles). Touching the elbow to opposite knee, be sure to employ full-range motion, fingers interlaced behind the head

Walk back down the stairs to restore your breath

Repeat 3 times

ROUND III

Perform single-leg hops up each step, switching legs each 5 steps -- continue alternating until you reach the top

At the top of the stairs, perform 10 six-count burpees (aka bodybuilders)

Walk back down

Repeat 3 times

ROUND IV

Taking two steps at a time, carry a heavy object (at least 50% of your body weight) up the stairs. If it's an extra-heavy load (such as a human partner) take one step at a time

Walk back down

Now, bear crawl backwards up the steps -- if it's a long flight, halfway is fine Walk back down

Repeat 2 times

ROUND V

At the bottom of the stairs, perform a set of body-weight rows. For this you'll need a chest or waist-high horizontal bar or suspension device, though I've used a large beach towel hung low enough for rows. Emphasize expanding the chest and working the sub-scapular muscles

Next, lunge-step up the flight of stairs: Step up two risers, then dip down and touch the rear knee to the lower step. Basically a walking lunge. Get the front thigh below parallel. Drive up and use the opposite leg. At the top, perform 50 to 100 full squats, each rep ass-to-ankles.

Walk down again, then do 5 elevated push-ups, with the feet on the third step. When finished, immediately move the feet down and do five more push-ups on the second step, then five more on the first step; five with both feet and hands on the ground; then five with hands upon the first step; five with hands on the second step; finally, the last 5 with the hands on the third step.

Do this circuit one time; no repeats.

Regarding circuit training and conditioning work for MMA fighters and other martial artists, there are many naysayers. To be sure, live sparring provides the exact conditioning required for the sport and a trainee does best with skills work and sparring while supplementing with only a few heavy, basic strength movements.

But... if you are injured, or for some reason geographically removed from your dojo, the type of training outlined above can do wonders to keep your conditioning intact and the waistline in check.

I've also trained guys who had such high skills than their available training partners, that their cardio wasn't getting appropriately taxed in their sparring. Yet when they traveled to tournaments, they would encounter opponents who either matched or surpassed their skills. Here's the thing: all else being equal in a match (the tournament ideal) the player with the superior conditioning is going to take it.

I had one guy who was so ridiculously superior to his training partners (who were also no joke!) that the my strategy was to thrash him with these these type of drills prior to his sparring sessions. We did this a couple times a week -- still allowing for plenty of recovery. This guy went on to win Abu Dhabi and texted me from the tournament saying that despite fighting eight matches, he never even got tired! This guy is Xande Ribeiro. (The guy with the rib pull was me)

It's one thing to perform your gym exercises completely fresh...and if your goal is lifting weights per se, then this is certainly a good way to train. But...in combat (whether combat sport or genuine mano a mano) the heart rate spikes -- potentially over 200 BPM. The analogy is it's one thing to do perform gym exercises when fresh, but another game entirely to move body weight under extreme duress -- which is the reality of combat. I call this aspect conditioned strength; I think the term originated with Karl Gotch.

In my experience, when used judiciously, this type of work can have a profound anti-aging effect on the body, especially combined with stints of fasting. It's no accident that the world's militaries use these kinds of stresses in the selection process for special forces candidate.

On the other hand, applied imprudently to the wrong contender, this kind of gross systemic stress can place one foot closer the grave -- but that's another article!

In Strength & Health!

Steve